How to Dazzle at Reading

Description

The activities in How to Dazzle at Reading will help Key Stage 3 (KS3) pupils with Special Needs to:

• understand and use a variety of decoding techniques
• discriminate between sounds in words
• learn letters and letter combinations
• read words by sounding out and blending the sounds

Pupils will practise:

• identifying the sounds they hear at the start and end of specified words
• the sounds of short and long vowels
• identifying which words have a short ‘oo’ and which words have a long ‘oo’
• identifying words which rhyme with a specified word
• filling in gaps in sentences and paragraphs
• changing the meaning of a word by changing its ‘end’ sound
• splitting up compound words into their components
• scanning texts

The small steps covered in the activities in this book will help pupils to develop their visual and aural skills of discrimination, recognition and memory. Many of the strategies can be modified and adapted to suit the specific needs of your pupils. It is not possible within the confines of this book to tackle every single phoneme or grapheme that the pupil may find difficult, so the sheets focus on those which are most commonly confusing to pupils of this age, working at this level.

Part of the disaffection of pupils with special needs is the misery of failing time after time. The sheets are designed, with information and questioning, to help those pupils to experience success and achievement. The expectation that the pupil will achieve will help to build confidence and competence.

The tasks in this book are kept fairly short, to facilitate concentration. The text on the pages is kept to a minimum, and the content of the pages is applied to contexts that the pupils will find motivating. In many cases there is an element of puzzle or competition to the activities to provide greater motivation. The extra task at the bottom of each sheet provides reinforcement and enables pupils to use the skills they have learned in a functional way.

“I have used them (How to Dazzle at English series) with my bottom set Year 8 group and they love them. The spelling and grammar are excellent and have them asking for more (a very rare occurrence).” Jenny Nutt – Subject Leader of English